Chinese coal ban to expand into suburbs

Suburban areas are to be targeted as well as city centres in China’s ban on coal burning as part of efforts to tackle air pollution.

The National Energy Administration (NEA) outlined its clean coal action plan 2015-2020. In doing so the group said it would promote centralised heating and power supply by natural gas and renewables, substituting dispersed heat and power engines fuelled by poor quality coal.

China will ban sale and burning of high-ash and high-sulphur coal in the worst affected regions including city clusters surrounding Beijing.

Beijing ordered a ban last year against coal burning in its six central districts from 2020.

Under the new action plan, coal-fired industrial boilers will all shift to burn natural gas or clean coal by 2020 in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei city clusters.

In a previous action plan released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China intended to reduce coal consumption by over 80 million t by 2017 and more than 160 million t by 2020.

China's annual coal consumption, at about 3.7 billion t, accounts for roughly 66% of its energy demand. Together with generating climate-warming greenhouse gases, it is a major reason behind the hazardous smog that frequently covers cities such as Beijing and Shanghai.